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JASPER JONES

$23.99

Based on the novel by Craig Silvey

It’s summer 1965 in a small, hot town in Western Australia. Overseas, war is raging in Vietnam, Civil Rights marches are on the streets, and women’s liberation is stirring – but at home in Corrigan Charlie Bucktin dreams of writing the Great Australian Novel. Charlie’s 14 and smart. But when 16-year-old, constantly-in-trouble Jasper Jones appears at his window one night, Charlie’s out of his depth. Jasper has stumbled upon a terrible crime in the scrub nearby, and he knows he’s the first suspect – that goes with the colour of his skin. He needs every ounce of Charlie’s bookish brain to help solve this awful mystery before the town turns on Jasper.

Kate Mulvany’s adaptation of Craig Silvey’s award-winning novel is wise and beautiful. A coming-of-age story, Jasper Jones interweaves the lives of complex individuals all struggling to find happiness among the buried secrets of a small rural community.

Whether you know the book or not, this piercing adaptation is very much worth seeing for the way it depicts – and shows ways across – some of the deep and enduring divides in our society." - Jason Blake SMH

[[PDF? &filename=`3125_CP_JASPER JONES_STATE_THEATRE_SA_EDUCATION_RESOURCE.pdf` ]]

  • drama, epic, story telling
  • 0
  • 8 total
  • 3 female identifying, 5 male identifying
  • culturally and linguistically diverse
  • 12 to 16, 18+
  • young adult, adult
  • Currency Press


  • MONOLOGUES
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Charlie

Male | Teen | 3 to 5 minutes
Starts on page 1

EXTRACT: Jasper Jones has come to my window! Jasper Jones needs me! You have to understand, I've never snuck out before. I'm a virgin to this kind of thing. Actually, I'm pretty much a virgin to every kind of thing. Except books. So me sneaking out with Jasper Jones, who is known throughout Corrigan as the worst kid in town, well, it's fair to say this is particularly out of character for me. In this town, Jasper is the first to be blamed for everything. Whatever the misdemeanor - nicking lollies from the store, throwing lit matches down the mines, or sneaking through fences to push over cows - no matter how clear their own child is guilty, parents ask immediately, ‘Were you with that motherless half-caste Jasper Jones?'. And the kids always nod, because Jasper's involvement instantly absolves them. Their parents think their poor little child has somehow been waylaid by a demon. Momentarily led astray. And so the case is closed with just one simple instruction, 'Stay away from Jasper Jones". So me being here, under a full moon, being led by Jasper Jones past the brown lawns and gardens of my sleeping neighbourhood, past the cricket pitch, past the railway, past the power station, over the bridge, through the farm district, and knowing what my mother would do if she found out where I was … Well let’s just say this is something way more adventurous than anything Huckleberry Finn ever did.


Mrs Bucktin

Female | 30s | under 3 minutes
Starts on page 66

EXTRACT: Your father and I don’t love each other anymore. We … lost it somewhere. He’s more in love with that bloody book than he is with me.You think he’s sitting in that nursery mourning our dead child? No. That’s my job. He’s writing a book. [It’s] the Great Australian Novel, Charlie. I reckon it’s set in a town of never-ending fucking silence. Silence and space. Dead paddocks and dried-up dams and a bunch of ghosts covered in dust walking around a place where nothing ever changes. It just doesn’t fucking change.

Adult language

EDUCATION RESOURCES

STATE THEATRE COMPANY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Study Guide & Activities from the State Theatre Company of South Australia

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Purchase at Currency Press $23.99
SKU: CP-3125 Category:

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